Unmanned

by Lois Greiman

  I took a sharp right onto Hillrose but the Vette stayed with me. Panic was starting to bubble up and suddenly the little roadster gunned up beside me. I glanced to the left. The passenger window was open. My heart stuttered. He was going to shoot at me. He was going to—

  “Where the hell are you going?” shouted the driver, and suddenly I recognized him.

  It wasn’t a coked-up psychopath with a split personality and anger issues after all. It was my soon-to-be-married brother, Pete.

  And here I had thought things couldn’t get any worse.

  10

  If you don’t like your teeth, keep your mouth shut.

  —Glen McMullen, a practical man

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” I might have sounded less than congenial as I climbed out of my Saturn. I hadn’t stopped driving until I’d reached my house. Peter John had pulled up behind me, kissing my bumper a little as he did so, then grinning like a hyena as he twirled his keys and sauntered toward me.

  “What do you think of the Vette?”

  I glanced at the car. It was sleek and sexy and looked expensive as hell, but I was in a bad mood and would rather have suffered ice-cream deprivation and shave daily than share that opinion. “Whose is it?” I asked.

  “A friend’s. I’m thinking about buying it.”

  I held a snort in reserve. I’d need it later. “Aren’t you expecting a baby or something?”

  He shrugged, casual. “She can get her own Vette.”

  I considered a couple pithy remarks, opened the gate, and stepped into my yard. The picture of maturity. “What about Holly?”

  “Holly?”

  I turned back toward him as I jiggled my key in the front door. It had a tendency to stick. “Your fiancée?”

  Twin dimples winked at me. My brother James got the sad Irish eyes, and Michael had inherited enough muscle to sink a battleship, but Peter John has a smile that can knock a woman brain-dead at fifty yards. This has been proven by four unsuccessful marriages and a string of other relationships with even less longevity. Which, perhaps, suggests the brain-dead condition is reversible.

  “I remember who she is,” he said. “But she didn’t wanna come. She hates California.”

  I won the battle with the door and stepped inside. Harlequin thundered up, nails clicking. I gave his ear a tug before he galloped a loop around us, then scrambled down the outside steps. I closed the door behind him and turned toward Peter.

  “Then I repeat,” I said, “why are you here?”

  Pete sauntered into my kitchen and began rummaging through my refrigerator. “If I didn’t know better, sis, I’d say you’re not very happy to see me.”

  I scowled at his rear end. Why didn’t McMullen men get fat? “I’m pretty well stocked on dead rats right now,” I said.

  He chuckled, gave me a glance over his shoulder, then gazed back into my fridge again. “So you found that, huh? Christ, don’t you keep any food in this place?”

  “Peter, why are you here?” I asked. “It’s, like, what, three seconds before your wedding?”

  “Jesus, Christopher!” He straightened. “Can’t a guy visit his little sister a couple weeks before his wedding?”

  I stared at him, remembered the rat and a dozen other decaying rodents, and said, “No,” with some feeling.

  He laughed again. “I’m starving.” Harlequin whined at the door. Pete let him in, grabbing at his tail as he entered, and Harley, always ready for a romp with the boys, made a lunge and galloped past, doing a mad loop through the family room and back into the kitchen. Pete snagged him on the way through and flopped to the floor, dog on his lap, both panting happily. “Harley’s hungry, too.” He glanced up. “Let’s eat.”

  I opened the cupboard where the dog food should have been. It was, quite literally, bare. I swore under my breath.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re out of dog food, aren’t you?”

  I didn’t answer, but he was already crooning to Harlequin as he wrestled him onto his back. “Mommy’s out of dog food. She’s not a very good mommy, is she?”

  I refrained from cracking him over the head with a frying pan so as not to give the impression that I wasn’t a very good sister, either.

  Popping to his feet, Pete make a feint to the right. Harlequin lunged after, then seeing the fake, dashed off into the family room again, ears flying, paws scrambling madly. Pete dashed after. If I hadn’t had the misfortune of knowing him since my birth, I would have thought he was on drugs. But it was just his normal behavior. Had ADHD been discovered earlier, the whole damn McMullen clan would have been high on Ritalin and self-pity years ago.

  “Hey.” He was back in a second. “Let’s go get some groceries.”

  “Why are you—”

  “I’ll cook,” he said.

  My mouth remained open for a second, prepared for the genius to come. “You cook?” The idea was both ludicrous and intriguing.

  “I’m not a kid anymore,” he said, and handed me my purse. I reached for it, but he had already snatched it back.

  Still I didn’t kill him. Instead, I left Harlequin with a promise of goodies and was soon sliding behind my Saturn’s little steering wheel. Pete plopped in beside me.

  “Shouldn’t a classy psychiatrist like you have a flashier car?” he asked.

  “Psychologist, Pete,” I said. I felt tired.

  “What?”

  “I’m a psychologist,” I said.

  “Yeah?” He was staring at me. “Since when?”

  I gritted my teeth. A blue Pontiac zipped past on the shoulder. This is a relatively common occurrence in the City of Angels, and not exactly an anomaly in Chi-town, but Pete jerked away from his door, and I turned toward him, curious. “Something wrong?”

  “No. Why?”

  “You seem nervous,” I said, and refrained from grinning even as I thought of a thousand times he’d scared the living bejeezus out of me. My mood was improving.

  He snorted, glanced out the window once more, and settled back against the seat cushion. “Why should I be nervous?”

  I studied him. In the dimming light of evening I could see that he had aged a little. Still lean, still irritating as a premedicated kindergartener, but older. “You chickening out?” I asked.

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Matrimony. Diapers. Orthodontist bills. Huge responsibilities.” The McMullen Neanderthals have never been big on responsibility. Giants in the belching arena, and pretty damn handy in a drinking contest of any sort, but responsibility? Not so much.

  “No big deal,” he said. “I’ve been married before, you know.”

  “Several times, I believe.”

  He didn’t acknowledge the insult. Or maybe he didn’t recognize it.

  “I just needed a little downtime. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

  I studied him. There was something different about him. A tension maybe. “How’s it going with Holly?”

  He inched up one shoulder and gazed out his window. “Great.”

  “No problems?”

  “No.” He tapped a rhythmless tune on his blue-jeaned thigh. “Why would there be?”

  ’Cuz he was an imbecile? “Wedding going ahead as planned?”

  “Of course. You’re coming, right?”

  I scowled, mind rushing along another path. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” I said, and glanced out my own window. Yes, he was a first-class nincompoop, but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel guilty at the thought of ditching his wedding. “I’m really terribly busy and—”

  “Wearing the big pink ass-bow?”

  “—with Laney gone—” I continued, then snapped my gaze toward him. “What?”

  He grinned like a lower primate. “Hey, you’re maid of honor. Gotta wear the dress.”

  I felt my insides go sour. “Holly picked out my dress?”

  “Sure. She’s the bride. It’s what brides do.”

/>   “You’d better be kidding me.”

  “Pretty in pink,” he said, and grinning, put one foot up on the dashboard.

  Shades of weddings past snaked through my mind. “It’s pink?”

  “With a bow the size of a frickin’ tank,” he said, spreading his hands to show the immensity.

  “Are you lying?”

  “Hey, I know it’s tough. But you gotta be nice to her. She’s pregnant. Did you know them hormones make your feet swell up like buffalo bladders?”

  “Listen, Pete.” My familial emotions were firing up. “I’m sorry she’s got fat feet, but I’ve put up with a load of crap from you already and—”

  “What are you talking about?”

  His innocent tone made me angry, and maybe a little insane. I gripped the steering wheel like a road mender on a jackhammer. “The sheep droppings?”

  He stared at me, then laughed. “Hell, that was centuries ago.”

  “The underwear.” I glared at him. He’d once given a pair of size 22 panties to Stevie Cromwell, my boyfriend at the time, saying they were mine. Needless to say, Stevie and I didn’t quite make it to the altar after that little prank. Not that the breakup was any terrible loss. I believe Stevie’s current girl is inflatable.

  “Oh, yeah, them gigantic bloomers.” He was still chuckling. “That was a good one.”

  I refrained from planting my feet against his thigh and thumping him onto the highway, but I couldn’t control the voice. “Listen,” I snarled, “I will not wear some Pepto-Bismol pink monstrosity to another one of your godforsaken—”

  “Jesus, calm down.”

  “I will not calm—”

  “I was just kidding.”

  I sucked in a breath and narrowed my eyes. “What?”

  “I was joking. Shit! You always take things so serious. I’m just glad you’re going to be there. It wouldn’t be the same without you.” He straightened as I took a right into Vons parking lot. “This it?”

  Two cars followed me in, but I failed to remember to be paranoid. Had Peter John just said something marginally nice? Might there be a Santa Claus? Was the world coming to an end? I killed the engine, staring at him, but he was already hoisting himself out of the car.

  “Come on, Pork Chop, let’s get a move on. I’m starving.”

  Oh, good. Everything was normal.

  The grocery store was busy. Pete grabbed a cart and wheeled it around the corner into the produce department. A woman with sleek blond hair caught back in an incomprehensible updo gave him a look over the top of the weird-fruit stand.

  “Hey,” he said. Glancing at her trim, silk-sheathed form, he came to a halt in front of some bumpy vegetation that didn’t look real, much less edible. Picking up a yellow something or other, he kept his gaze glued on the classy chick, his patented grin in place. “My sister needs more vegetables in her diet. You like these?”

  I waited for her to slap him down like the sheep-dropping dealer he was, but she smiled instead. “They’re quite good in curry sauce.”

  “Really?” He put the little extraterrestrial down and leaned a palm against the stand. “Don’t tell me you cook.”

  She tilted her head, oozing class from every minuscule pore. “I’m afraid I don’t get much time with my law practice.”

  “You’re a lawyer?”

  “Corporate,” she said. “How about you?”

  “I’m an agent for the government.” Translation: firefighter. “But I’ve been considering taking my bar exam just to see—”

  I rolled my eyes toward the kiwi fruit and confiscated the cart. I’d been watching the McMullen Maniacs do their dirty deeds since birth and really didn’t think I could stomach much more at the august age of…thirty-something.

  Skirting the math, I picked out a pineapple, three oranges, and a lime. I had no idea what I was going to do with them. Mostly, dining-in means a bag of Cheetos and a jug of milk. But slick-haired ladies conversing with my lamebrain brother as if he were lucid had thrown me off track.

  Turning the corner of the produce section, I examined the strawberries and had a virtual encounter with chocolate fondue.

  “The berries look good, huh?”

  I glanced up. A man stood on the far side of a melon stand, holding a plastic box of strawberries in his left hand, which looked like it had just been manicured. He wore dress pants with cuffs, a wrinkle-free linen shirt, and perfectly polished penny loafers with tassels. He had a square, average face and a rockin’ body. But Will Swanson had had a nice body, too. Now he was in the morgue.

  “I don’t know, though,” he continued, musing. “The grapes are from Colorado, and Mom says all the best fruit comes from the Denver area. Something about the climate.”

  I felt restless and mean, but resisted pulling out my Glock; the man had a mother. Still, I wasn’t as trusting as I used to be. There’s something about a dead guy on your lawn that makes life more complicated.

  “You getting the berries?” he asked, glancing up.

  “I’m not sure.”

  He smiled. It didn’t make my heart go pitty-pat, but it didn’t make me duck and cover, either, which was pretty good at this stage of the game. “That your brother?” he asked, tilting his head toward Pete.

  I glanced at the idiot. He was still busy flirting. Or, as they would call it in the real world, lying. But a thought struck me. I tensed and turned back toward the stranger. He was blond and very fair. “How did you know?”

  He raised his brows, startled by my tone. “Know what?”

  I cleared my throat, added an uncertain smile, and tried for normal, but I’d left that blessed state about three corpses back. “How’d you know he was my brother?”

  “Oh.” He chuckled, relaxing a little. There was a store full of witnesses after all. He probably thought he was safe from L.A.’s crazies. “Well, he’s obviously not a boyfriend. And he better not be your husband.”

  I’d lost the battle with my smile.

  “The way he’s hitting on that young lady in the silk dress,” he explained. “You don’t look like the sort to put up with that kind of behavior. Well…” He put the strawberries in his neatly arranged tote and moved on. “Been nice meeting you.”

  I didn’t have the wherewithal to come up with any clever parting rejoinders and wheeled my cart around the corner.

  “Who was that?” Pete asked, strolling up behind and dropping a pound of hamburger into my cart.

  I eyed the T-bones in the coolers. “Don’t know.”

  “Don’t tell me my little sister lets strangers hit on her in the fruit department.”

  “Shut up,” I said. And here I thought I was out of clever comebacks.

  “Maybe I should ask him about his intentions,” said Pete, trailing along.

  “Maybe you should grow up.”

  He turned as if searching the store. “It’s my duty as your big brother.”

  “Seriously,” I said, coming to a halt and belligerently staring him in the eye. “What is wrong with you?”

  He stared back, face suddenly earnest. “I need a loan.”

  I paused, waited, stared some more. “What?”

  He drew a long slow breath, stuck his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, and hunched his shoulders. “Listen, Chris, I didn’t want to just spring this on you out of the blue, but here’s the deal…” He rocked back on the heels of his threadbare sneakers and blew out a breath as if bracing himself. “I really want to make this marriage work.”

  I waited. Nothing. “And?”

  “I’m thinking of going back to school.”

  “Back to…” I shook my head. “Elementary—”

  “Okay!” he interrupted, and shooting me a peeved look, glanced away and scowled. “Okay. I’m thinking of going to school. College. Well, tech school.”

  Had the world gone mad? “For what?”

  “I think I’d make a helluva electrician.”

  I shook my head, mind spinning. “What about fire-fighting?”<
br />
  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I mean…doesn’t it seem like, you know, kind of like a kid’s job?”

  But he was a kid. A kid in wolves’ clothing.

  “Holly’s ex was a CPA.”

  I stopped short. “Holly has an ex?”

  He shrugged. “Old boyfriend. A live-in. Long time ago. She don’t talk about it much. Guess he was kind of an ass. A control freak.”

  “And now she’s marrying you. Someone with no control at all,” I said, and rolled slowly into baked goods.

  “Yeah,” he said, missing my mean-spiritedness again. “I mean…shit…” He exhaled. “I’m going to be a daddy. A father.” He said it kind of like someone else might say he was going to morph into Daffy Duck. Which, knowing Pete, may yet happen. “Like you said, that’s a big responsibility.”

  “What school?”

  He glanced behind us again. I did the same.

  “Looking for an attorney, Pete?” I asked.

  “What? No. School? Oh. Lakewood Tech. If I was an electrician, I could work regular hours. Spend evenings with my girls.”

  “Girls?” My mind was spinning. Peter John in a grown-up job? It boggled the mind. Maybe that’s why I added tofu to the cart.

  “Holly,” he explained. “And my daughter. Did you know it’s a girl? Holly’s pretty pumped. Doesn’t have no family in the area. Hardly has no family at all. Her old man split when she was little. Maybe that’s why she wound up with what’s-his-face.”

  “Who’s his face?”

  “Her ex.” He drew a deep breath. “But I’m going to make it all up to her.”

  He looked unusually sincere, and suddenly I thought maybe I’d misjudged him. Maybe he was growing up after all. Getting ready to take on life. Miracles happen every day, I thought, and wrestled an eight-hundred-pound bag of dog food into the cart.

  “How long would it take you?” I was only puffing a little.